Many cloud services are supported through a web browser, however some document editing capabilities need resources beyond what such browsers support. For example, when using certain cloud-client services such as collaborative document editing, users expect rapid bring-up of a document that is being edited by the collaborators.
Unfortunately browsers by themselves are deficient in at least three aspects (1) browsers are limited with respect to the host platform storage areas that the browser can access; (2) browsers are limited with respect to the host platform operating system services that the browser can access; and (3) browsers observe predefined security models that are inflexible.
Moreover, in many settings standalone browser-based implementations introduce user-perceived start-up latency (e.g., to launch a browser, to log in to a service provider, to navigate to the particular cloud services, to access an up-to-date document, etc.). What is needed is a technique or techniques to improve over legacy techniques and/or over other considered approaches. Some of the approaches described in this background section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.